PHOENIX – Cyril Asker only needed a matter of minutes to take Dmitri Smoliakov down, move to full mount, and rain down a steady stream of strikes that forced referee Al Guinee to call a halt to the action.

The heavyweight bout opened up the preliminary card of today’s UFC Fight Night 103 event at Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix. It streamed on UFC Fight Pass ahead of additional prelims and a main card on FS1.

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For a fight that ended in an early finish, Asker didn’t exactly get off to the greatest start. It was Smoliakov who owned the early going, blitzing Asker with a charging punch combo in the opening minute, only to have his progress halted when he accidentally poked Asker in the eye.

Asker put his recovery time to good use, and he came out for the restart ready to go on the offensive. A takedown by Asker put Smoliakov on his back, and while Smoliakov initially landed strong strikes from the bottom in side control, his lack of defense allowed Asker to move easily into mount, and from there the fight became very one-sided.

Asker struggled at first to find a way through Smoliakov’s defenses, but he kept the pressure on and didn’t give Smoliakov any room to breathe as he suffocated him with a non-stop barrage of punches from the top. The referee Guinee gave Smoliakov ample time to respond, but as more punches began finding their way through and Smoliakov still had no answer for the Asker’s assault, he was eventually forced to stop the bout and award Asker the TKO victory.

“My camp was very good,” Asker said. “I put together a good game plan and followed it well, and I am very happy to have my first win in the UFC. When he was punching me from the bottom, I couldn’t really feel it, so I just kept moving and working. I’m going to take things fight by fight. I need two or three more wins and I will start calling out guys by name. For now, I am happy with my performance and I want whoever the UFC puts in front of me next.”

Asker’s win is his first since his knockout loss to Jared Cannonier in his UFC debut last April. Smoliakov has now lost two straight.